


Leaning Heavy on Hope

by TheFandomLesbian



Series: Angela's Raulson One-Shots [20]
Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Apocalypse, American Horror Story: Coven
Genre: Blind Cordelia, F/F, Fluff, No Smut, Romance, foxxay - Freeform, goode-day, raulson - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 19:03:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17330630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFandomLesbian/pseuds/TheFandomLesbian
Summary: Misty finds a greenhouse full of suffering plants upon her arrival at the academy and decides to revive them to the best of her  ability. However, she needs the guidance of a friend for some of the toxic herbs.





	Leaning Heavy on Hope

**Author's Note:**

> For a prompt: Cordelia’s plants suffer when she’s blinded the first time and one of the ways Misty and Cordelia bond is when Misty “shows” Cordelia how she’s brought all her plants in the greenhouse back to full health.

"I’m old, not broken

leaning heavy on hope and I’m hoping

I can always close my eyes to see.” -Down Like Silver, “Any Day”

…

Heavy brown leaves draped from the many plants in the greenhouse. The building had the scent of rot attached to it. Misty strode through it with her tongue pinched between her teeth as she considered it, hands on her hips, drinking in the sight of the dead and the dying. Plants didn’t have souls. They couldn’t cry out to her. But it still hurt. She frowned and slid a tape into the player. Stevie sang to her, and she felt a little bit warmer.

This place wasn’t her home. But she could make it better while she was here.

“Misty?” Zoe pushed through the door of the greenhouse, a pursed frown on her lips. “Hey. I thought I saw you head this way.” Misty swung back to face her with a smile. “Nobody uses this place, you know. Cordelia was the only one, and now… well, obviously.” _Obviously?_ Misty wanted to ask, but she held her tongue. It wasn’t any of her business what had happened to Cordelia, or when it had happened.

“Will anybody care if I fix it up?”

Zoe’s eyebrows quirked together. “You just came out of the jungle. Don’t you want to spend some time in civilization? We have, like, a whole TV here.”

“Nah, I never cared for TV. My mama always called it the stupid box.”

An awkward laugh coughed out of Zoe’s lungs. “Well… I mean, I guess nobody will care if you want to hang out here. Maybe ask Cordelia first, though, before you get rid of anything. She really liked it out here, until--until everything.”

She had mentioned it twice. Misty had to ask. “What happened to her?”

To her surprise, Zoe shrugged, like the whole thing was nonchalant. “Somebody threw acid in her face.” Misty ogled at her, half-expecting her to deliver some punchline on the very sick joke, but Zoe didn’t redact her statement, and instead, she pressed, “They said Myrtle did it--that was why they killed her--but Cordelia doesn’t believe it was her.” _Myrtle?_ Misty had never considered that Myrtle had the potential to be danger. _She isn’t. Cordelia knows best._

“What do you think?”

Zoe’s vacant expression made Misty wonder if she cared. “I think Fiona killed Madison, and she’s done worse than frame an innocent person for a crime.”

“Do you think Fiona did it?”

“I don’t know. Ask Cordelia.”

 _Yeah, I’m definitely not going to ask Cordelia if her mama was the one who threw acid in her face._ Misty knew she didn’t always know the boundaries of propriety, but she knew that would cross a big line. “Right,” she hedged. Cordelia hadn’t asked her any invasive questions, and she planned to respond in kind.

“Are you coming in for dinner? We just finished cooking. You don’t have to hang out here by yourself.”

“Nah. I’m good. I’ll warm up some leftovers later.”

“Alright.” Zoe left the greenhouse, abandoning Misty in her solitude--just the way she preferred it.

…

Several days passed. Misty took the liberty of reviving the plants she recognized and bringing back their colors. She thumbed through the botany books Cordelia kept on a dusty shelf in the greenhouse and sorted the poisonous ones from the safe ones. She had no intention of messing with anything that could kill her--nothing sounded quite as embarrassing as accidentally killing herself through herbal poison.

She approached Cordelia one afternoon in the living room where Cordelia rested on the sofa with a book in her lap. _Maybe I shouldn’t. She’s reading._ Cordelia worshiped the pages of the book with her fingertips, smelling it, the paper and the ink scent rising up from it. But it was just that--ink. _She’s not reading. She can’t see._ Misty cleared her throat. “Miss Cordelia?”

The house was quiet. Everyone had left about their business, Fiona to chemotherapy, Myrtle finding the council, all of the other girls enjoying themselves. It was just them. Cordelia lifted her head. “Misty? I thought you went with Zoe.”

“Er--nah. Not my type of thing.” Misty didn’t know where Zoe had gone, but she didn’t think an afternoon of listening to Madison and Zoe and Nan all badger each other sounded much fun. Cordelia patted the cushion of the couch beside her, and Misty hesitantly took the invitation, sinking down beside her. Cordelia started to open her hand for Misty’s, but her forehead wrinkled as she reconsidered. Misty’s eyes widened, and she took Cordelia’s hand. She didn’t have anything to hide from Cordelia’s Sight. “Are you okay?”

She blurted the question. It wasn’t what she had come to talk about, but Cordelia seemed lonely. Even her touch pressed melancholy into Misty’s skin. She squeezed Misty’s hand just a little too tight, like too long had passed since someone touched her. “Yes--of course. I’m fine.” Cordelia swallowed hard. “Are you? Zoe tells me you’ve been missing meals.”

“Zoe tells me _you’ve_ been missing meals.”

Cordelia stifled a chuckle, but her lips curled upward at the corners, and Misty celebrated the small success. “Dinner goes more smoothly if everyone doesn’t witness me stabbing myself with a fork.” The light passed over her sunglasses in a reflection, so Misty gazed back at herself. She wondered what emotion she would have seen on Cordelia’s face if she could have. Her words were wry and rueful. “What’s your excuse?”

Misty traced her thumb over the smooth back of Cordelia’s hand, feeling the way the bones and veins shifted under her skin. “I don’t like being around so many people,” she confessed. The crowd of the coven tended to drive her back out to the privacy of the greenhouse where she didn’t need to worry about anyone seeing her or mocking her. “I eat after everybody goes to bed. I ain’t starving.” She smiled as Cordelia’s hand moved against hers. The unique sensation of skin on her skin warmed her soul.

The space between their palms grew warm. Misty didn’t want to let go. “Do you like it here?”

Misty sucked her lower lip. She couldn’t lie to Cordelia, but she didn’t know the truth. “It’s better than being butchered, I figure.” It seemed a lot better, sitting here next to Cordelia, than it did when she tried to sleep in the same room with Nan. “It’s not bad. Just not what I’m used to. You know, a bunch of catty girls. I’ve seen less drama in families of squirrels.” Cordelia laughed, and this one didn’t have any dark ties to it. It was genuine. “It’s true!”

“I believe it.” Cordelia’s brow quirked in the middle of her forehead. Misty admired the wrinkle forming there. “Thank you for taking care of my plants.”

The morose tone to her words brought down Misty’s high. “I like them a lot. It’s peaceful.” Cordelia’s hand wrapped around Misty’s, giving a squeeze of appreciation. “I just--the poisonous ones, can you show me how to fix them? I want to help, but I don’t want to accidentally make myself sick.”

Inclining her eyebrows, Cordelia slid her hand away from Misty’s and closed the book in her lap, putting it off to the side. Her other hand was wrapped around the handle of her cane. “I--I’m not sure I can help you. I think it might be too much for me.”

“There’s nobody here but me,” Misty enticed. “I promise I won’t tell anyone.” Who did she have to tell? Except Zoe, hardly anyone talked to her.

Cordelia considered it before she nodded. “Alright.” Misty grinned, and she popped up from the couch. Cordelia was a little slower to stand. She fumbled to take Misty’s arm for guidance. She gave it a little squeeze. Misty led the way from the house, careful to take things slowly; she realized Cordelia had hardly left the house since her accident. She took the steps one at a time. The cracked sidewalk caught her cane on every bump, but Misty didn’t rush her. She had nothing but time.

The floral scents of the greenhouse washed over them. Cordelia took a long, audible breath through her nose, drinking in the essence of the room. Her silence lingered. She spoke when she was ready. “You’ll need gloves.” She unwrapped her hand from around Misty’s arm. Misty fetched the gloves and garden shears like she was instructed. “Which one are you using now?”

“I was starting with the belladonna.”

Misty loomed over the pretty plant, resisting the urge to bend over and breathe in the scent of the pretty bluish flowers. “You can smell it. The spores won’t hurt you.” She settled her hand on Misty’s elbow, like she feared letting her stray too far. “All of the plant is toxic, though. Always make sure you wash up after you handle it.” Her aura at Misty’s side was warm and welcoming. Misty liked having her there. “And try not to touch it with your bare skin.”

“Wasn’t planning on it. Once I got poison ivy in places you do _not_ want poison ivy, and that really makes a person rethink botany as a practice.” She had made the horrible mistake of peeing in an unfamiliar bush far downstream from her shack, and she had had the rash for days all over her ass and more intimate parts. Cordelia snorted, trying to restrain her laugh, but she failed at it. “Oh, you laugh now. Wait til you’re scratching your ass from here to Timbuktu ‘cause you forgot how many leaves a poison ivy plant has. _And_ things that aren’t your ass!”

Cordelia put up a valiant battle to maintain her composure, but Misty was trying to make her laugh, and she knew it. Her face flushed bright red as she giggled, stifling it behind her hand, but she couldn’t bottle it up. Things kept escaping through her pinched lips. Misty’s own laugh burbled in her chest as she joined Cordelia in joy. She relished in the sound of Cordelia’s freedom. She had never heard Cordelia express herself so freely before, so joyously, and she celebrated it.

It took Cordelia a moment to collect herself. “How many leaves are on poison ivy?”

“I dunno, three or five.”

She laughed again in a short burst, placing her hand on the small of Misty’s back. _Oh, boy, I like that a lot._ “It’s three.”

“There you go, it’s three. I don’t need to know anything as long as I’ve got you around, right?” Misty asked cheekily. Cordelia chuckled. “Where do I start with this thing?” she asked about the belladonna.

Cordelia cleared her throat. “Just trim off all of the parts that are unkempt and do what you did with the others. Don’t leave the trimmings out where any animals can get to them.”

“Gotcha.”

Cordelia’s instructions were easy to follow, and she did exactly as she was directed until the pretty blue flowers perked up again and the brown leaves greened to their former hue. “Wow. It turned all pretty again.”

The other woman smiled back at her. “This one is my favorite.” Her expression had a certain sadness to it.

“Wanna see?”

“What?”

“The flowers. Do you wanna see ‘em? I’ll look at ‘em for you.”

It struck her, the absolutely oddness of the conversation--how absolutely crazy her words would have sounded to anyone who didn’t understand them. But Misty stripped off the gardening gloves and touched the inside of Cordelia’s wrist in offering. Cordelia put her cane aside, took her hands, and folded their fingers together like pieces of paper forming origami configurations. Misty grounded herself in the moment. Then she focused on the task before her, starting with the bright asters and traveling around the greenhouse with her eyes.

The hues were like all the seasons at once. Orange and red bled into green and yellow, and blue and violet flashed with the bluebells and cornflowers. And when she finished, her eyes landed back on Cordelia’s face, admiring the blush to her cheeks and the awestruck smile upon her lips.

The silence stretched before them, a canvas untouched by brush. Cordelia said, “Now you’re just looking at me.”

“You _are_ the prettiest flower in here.” Cordelia ducked her head in embarrassment. Misty reached across the table beside her and picked an innocent violet off of its stem, and she tucked it under the earpiece on Cordelia’s sunglasses. “There. Represent.”

Her face flamed. “You’re silly.” Cordelia tiptoed closer to her, and she pulled Misty into a hesitant hug. “Thank you, Misty.”

The petals of the violet brushed Misty’s cheek. “Thank you.” She rested her chin on Cordelia’s shoulder. _I’d really like to kiss her right now._ Shame rose to her own cheeks, and she struggled to ignore it.

However, Cordelia did not ignore it. “Then do it,” she whispered right to Misty’s ear.

Misty withdrew for second, fearing she had misheard, and she found equal apprehension on Cordelia’s face, fearing she had spoken out of hand. She cupped Cordelia’s cheek in one hand and kissed her once on the mouth, a timid peck. “Like that?”

There was no darkness to Cordelia’s final smile. “Just like that.”


End file.
